Silver Generative, Algorithmic, Parametric and AI-Assisted Design · 2023
Parametric Generation Building
by Junming Chen
- A' Design Award 2023 Silver Winner in Generative, Algorithmic, Parametric and AI-Assisted Design
- Awarded April 15, 2023
- CLIENT: Junming Chen
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 799,725
- Verification code 5A8A6BD8BE · Verify this award
About Parametric Generation Building
Parametric Generation is a residential town design created with the parametric tool Grasshopper. Buildings in the traditional style of eastern Sichuan are generated from a small set of parameters, such as length, width, height, eave size and roof slope. The individual buildings can be combined freely, and the complex covers about 100,000 square meters. Designers can add details to the generated models, and any revision is made by entering new parameters. The method keeps one architectural style across a whole town and shortens the design process.
The Parametric Generation Building by Junming Chen represents a significant contribution to the ongoing dialogue between computational design methodologies and traditional architectural heritage, demonstrating how algorithmic approaches can generate forms that honor vernacular building traditions while introducing contemporary spatial and chromatic innovations. This award-winning project appears to engage with the rich legacy of waterfront commercial architecture, where covered walkways, canal-side promenades, and intimate pedestrian scales have historically fostered community gathering and commercial exchange. The designer seems to have employed parametric tools to generate the distinctive facade composition, where the placement and proportioning of colored panels within the timber grid framework suggests an underlying algorithmic logic that produces visual variety within systematic constraints. The chromatic intervention, with its bold deployment of primary colors, evokes the aesthetic principles of early twentieth-century modernist movements while remaining contextually sensitive to the warm material palette of traditional construction. Technical accomplishment is evident in the seamless integration of contemporary glass curtain wall systems with established post-and-beam structural expressions, creating a hybrid architectural language that speaks simultaneously to heritage and innovation. The twilight rendering captures an evocative moment when artificial illumination begins to assert itself against the fading natural light, suggesting the building's role as a beacon of activity within its urban context. The careful attention to human scale, demonstrated through the inclusion of strolling figures, reinforces the project's commitment to creating welcoming public spaces. Viewers might consider how computational design tools can serve not merely as form-generators but as instruments for cultural continuity, producing architecture that feels both inevitably contemporary and deeply rooted in place.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- This design uses GH technology to generate and modify the town quickly, explore parametric technology, and realize the inheritance and innovation of eastern Sichuan folk houses. The architectural design has carried out a modern evolution design for the east Sichuan folk houses, making the architectural design more modern. In this design, the architectural and commercial space is designed to be flexibly combined to achieve various functions and maintain the consistency of the architectural appearance.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- The designed building complex covers an area of about 100,000 square meters and comprises individual buildings in the Eastern Sichuan style. The separate buildings can be combined freely, and GH generates each building.
- Tags
- Grasshopper, Automated generation, Parametric design, Algorithm generation, Generate building, Cultural heritage
- Production Technology
- This design summarizes the design principles of Chuandong Architecture and writes it as a GH program to realize the automatic generation and architectural style control of the town. This technology has two main advantages. First, the architectural design style is unified and cultural characteristics are preserved. Secondly, designers can carry out detailed designs based on buildings generated by GH to achieve rich details and efficient methods. It only takes a few minutes to develop the whole town with GH, the generated model is accurate, and the BIM model can be directly exported to guide the construction.
- Design Challenge
- Traditional town design faces two difficulties. One is that the design cycle is prolonged, and the other is that many people design together, resulting in inconsistent design styles.
To solve these two problems, this design proposes to convert the regional culture and architectural style into executable computer programs to realize the automatic generation of buildings, that is, to discover the automatic generation of towns by writing Grasshopper (GH) programs. For the inheritance of regional culture and architectural style, this design analyzed the structure and layout of many local buildings, summarized the architectural characteristics and converted them into executable computer programs, and finally realized the automatic generation and modification of the town. - Project Duration
- The project is located in Chongqing, and the design time is 2023.
- Operation Flow
- 1. The designer enters the parameters required by the building in GH, such as length, width, height, the size of the eaves and the slope of the roof, etc., to generate the building.
2. Designers add architectural details to the generated buildings.
3. If modification is required, directly re-enter the necessary parameters to regenerate the building. - Research
- Research Background: Designing a small town is a highly complex task, requiring many designers to spend a lot of time designing and modifying. Many people collaborated on the design, resulting in inconsistent architectural styles, and it took a lot of time to alter the plan simultaneously.
Methods: The town generation program was written through the Grasshopper (GH) program to realize the rapid generation and modification of the town.
Results: The computer (GH) quickly generates a town design that matches the site, and the generated town continues the architectural style of eastern Sichuan.
Insights: This method realizes the rapid generation and modification of the 3D model of the town, and various parameters of the generated building are adjustable. Designers can add design details to this generated town, which ensures the unity and high efficiency of the design style. - Inspiration
- This project uses the parametric technology Grasshopper (GH) to automatically generate the residential towns in eastern Sichuan. Use technology to solve the problems of inconsistent design styles and low design efficiency in small towns. Using GH to generate buildings replaces manual drawing and modeling, realize a unified architectural style, improves design efficiency, and ensures the continuation and innovation of Chuandong culture in the city.